Training With The Welsh Academy Of Art
Since the beginning of June 2023, after a bit of a break from practising (I had what turned out to probably have been covid as I coughed so hard I actually broke a rib), and after attending a wedding in Spain, I’ve been drawing again at the studios of the Welsh Academy of Art, not far from me. It’s run by Lucy, a lady who trained at the Charles H Cecil studios in Florence, which is renowned for giving artists a grounding in the classical techniques as practised by the old masters, through three years of rigorous academic training.
The Academy here exists as one of very few in the UK that pass on such a learning experience at home, and it has so far been a really great opportunity to set aside a month and get a grasp of a particular set of skills that I hope will feed into and improve the quality of my work overall going forward.
The eye of Michelangelo’s David
Still life (week two).
All initiates begin by drawing casts and still lives in charcoal, the same size on the paper as they are to the eye, by standing back at a marked position on the studio floor to observe and measure with a piece of thread and a mirror, before walking backwards and forwards repeatedly to make marks on the page. I have begun to progress into oil painting with a limited palette and am looking forward to working with a live model over the next few weeks.
Drawing from a plaster cast of St Jerome.
The start of a painting with just Raw Umber and Ivory Black.
Portrait of a live model (Mark) using the sight/size method.
Starting to paint using ‘sight-size’ from a cast with just ‘white, black and raw umber’.